"We have had straws upon request for nearly a year," said Sarah Pritchard, co-owner of Table 128 in Clive. "We have also been working to reduce the use of beverage napkins and have gone to completely biodegradable takeout packaging."

Pritchard said there are many ways to reduce unnecessary consumption, including food waste, at a restaurant. The Iowa Restaurant Association plans a seminar on the topic at its Hospitality Expo in October.

A local business owner has started a petition to encourage other restaurants to take similar steps, in line with a trend that has seen governments step in in other parts of the country and across the world.

Straw laws

A bill being debated by the California Legislature would prohibit servers in restaurants from giving diners plastic straws, except by request. Businesses could be fined for violations.

“We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans,” Ian Calderon, Democratic majority leader of California's lower house, said in a statement. (An earlier version of the statewide bill started an uproar because it said violators could be sentenced to jail, which Calderon called an inadvertent mistake.)

Plastic straws may not make up the most of that bulk, but since they are small and lightweight, they almost never get recycled and end up wreaking havoc on fish and wildlife that either breathe them in or swallow them.

But the movement to reduce the use of plastic straws and beverage stirrers seems to be picking up steam. St. Kilda, a restaurant in downtown Des Moines, announced on Tuesday that it no longer hands out straws with drink orders.

"We, of course, will have them on hand for those who would like one," said Whitney Hall, a spokesperson for St. Kilda. "But (we) will not automatically include them.”

The owner, Alexander Hall, said that most customers have been supportive of the decision.

A straw petition

"I was in a trip to Denver and there were these signs up that said 'Straws by Request Only,'" said Patterson, who is founder and CEO of the digital creative agency Happy Medium. "It was on the menus. I thought, 'Why don't we have that here?'"

The petition had nearly 900 signatures Thursday.

"There's no negative feedback for the most part," Patterson said. "We can all work toward a better world with this and make it happen."

It was Patterson's spearheading of the cause that made Chris Diebel, managing partner of Bubba, also announce a new restaurant policy. "We are phasing out straws by July 1," Diebel said. "The only exception is that juleps will always be served with straws."

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A mint julep at Bubba in Des Moines is one of the signature cocktails on the menu.(Photo11: Bryon Houlgrave/The Register)

Other Orchestrate restaurants vary on policies, for now.

In 2017, Iowa joined nine other states including Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri and Wisconsin that have passed legislation preventing the ban of a variety of plastic items, from bags to cups.

The plastic industry advocates a focus on disposal instead of an outright ban on the manufacture of plastic goods.

"The focus on single-use products like straws shouldn’t be whether we have them or not but instead that they are disposed of properly," the Plastics Industry Association states on its website. "The real challenge is making it easier for everyone to better dispose of straws and other single-use products by enhancing our recycling and recovery technologies."